Posts – Page 16 – The UncommonWealth

Newspapers

The Afterlife of a New Age College

Conceived of by financier Morton Blumenthal, inspired by twentieth-century psychic Edgar Cayce, and led by Virginia educator Dr. William Moseley Brown, Atlantic University (AU) officially…

Kelley EwingJuly 26, 2023

Newspapers

“Buckroe Fish Packer Now Devil’s Nemesis”

In September 1935, the Richmond Times-Dispatch grabbed readers' attention with the dramatic headline, "Buckroe Fish Packer Now Devil's Nemesis." The feature provided an early glimpse…

John DealJuly 24, 2023

Archives Conservation The Stacks

Records Room Road Trips: Spotsylvania, Mathews, Greene, Lancaster, and Middlesex Counties

Our CCRP travel picked up during the month of April for CCRP consulting archivists, which for me meant visits to five localities: Spotsylvania County, Mathews…

Tracy HarterJuly 19, 2023

Newspapers

Vox Poppers: The Twitter Wars of the 1930s

It was November 1932 and Richmond resident John O’Flaherty had a complaint. It was not an earth-shattering complaint, nor an urgent one, not big enough…

Jessi BennettJuly 17, 2023

Education & Programming Manuscripts & Special Collections The Stacks

Building an Ideal Organization: A. W. Holmes and the National Ideal Benefit Society, Inc.

Editor's Note: As a participant in the inaugural year of the Transforming the Future of Libraries & Archives Internship Program last year, Zillia Dollinger worked in…

Zillia DollingerJuly 12, 2023

Public Libraries

Don’t Throw It Out – Repair It at the Library

Imagine your favorite necklace clasp broke, but you don’t have small tools to repair it. While it may not be worth enough to take to…

Guest ContributorJuly 10, 2023

The Stacks

The Case of the Phantom Article: Libraries and ChatGPT

Last month, my colleague Dave Grabarek approached me with a puzzling reference question. A researcher had gotten in touch to request an academic journal article…

Rebecca SchneiderJuly 5, 2023

Horse Thief!

According to a mysterious document in the Library’s holdings, an interstate crime ring consisting mostly of Virginians operated from Maryland to South Carolina in the…

Bill BynumJuly 3, 2023

Archives Conservation Digital Projects

Virginia Untold: Looking Back and Moving Forward

Editor's Note: Neither Virginia Untold nor Virginia Untold Project Manager Lydia Neuroth is going anywhere, but as we transition out of our two-year NHPRC grant…

Lydia NeurothJune 28, 2023

Virginia Authors

New Books – June 2023

The Library of Virginia's first-floor lobby and Exhibition Gallery are open Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The second-floor Reading Rooms are open Tuesday-Friday, 9:00…

Donna PletcherJune 26, 2023

Archives Conservation

Records Room Road Trips: Day Trippers

Travel for Library of Virginia Circuit Court Records Program (CCRP) consulting archivists begins to taper off when the grants are announced, which this past year…

Eddie WoodwardJune 21, 2023

Digital Projects Education & Programming Newspapers

Making Connections with the Past

Tamika Y. Nunley’s new book The Demands of Justice: Enslaved Women, Capital Crime, and Clemency in Early Virginia explores the impact of Virginia’s judicial system…

Library of VirginiaJune 19, 2023

“Operating for Gold”: Gold Mining in Nineteenth-Century Virginia

The California Gold Rush of 1849 is a universal topic of study in courses surveying U.S. history, but what is commonly known about gold mining…

Caroline CollinsJune 14, 2023

Public Libraries

The Great Gatsby Gala

On Saturday, April 22nd, Virginia Beach Public Library’s (VBPL) Meyera E. Oberndorf Central Library transformed into Jay Gatsby’s West Egg mansion to host the Great…

Guest ContributorJune 12, 2023

How Not to Be a Confederate Soldier: Civil War Writs of Habeas Corpus from Richmond City and Petersburg

Why didn’t men fight in the Civil War? It’s not the most popular question that gets brought up during discussions of America’s bloodiest war, but…

McKenzie LongJune 7, 2023